ACER Finds That EU Electricity Congestion Income Is Mainly Used To Maintain And Improve Cross-Zonal Capacities Or Is Saved For Future Use

The EU Agency for the Cooperation of Energy Regulators (ACER) publishes today its first monitoring report on the use of congestion income in 2021 (‘Report’).

The Report presents details on the congestion income collected during 2021, and how it was used or saved. In case a part of the congestion income was used for network tariffs, ACER evaluated the actions taken by the NRAs to fulfil the priority objectives of guaranteeing the actual availability of the allocated capacity or maintaining or increasing cross-zonal capacities.

What are the Report’s main highlights?

ACER finds that EU electricity congestion income is mainly used for guaranteeing or increasing cross-zonal capacities or is saved for future use.

The total available congestion income in 2021 was €6.9 billion, out of which:

95% was used for priority objectives or saved for future priority objectives-related use; and
5% was used for tariff reduction.

The amount of congestion income used for priority objectives increased compared to 2020, however, ACER concludes that the priority objectives cannot be deemed fulfilled for five countries, namely for BG, ES, GR, HU, and SI.